White Sands

White Sands National Monument is a playground for the imagination. 

The landscape is reduced to simple forms and only the angle of light makes the difference between something stunning and nothing much at all.

 So it's best to visit at sunrise and at sunset when shadows are long and colours more intense.

And it helps to have a someone along - in this case the lovely Gail - to add a point of reference to the endless sea of gypsum sand.

From the ridge tops of the dunes it feels like you can see forever!

An endless sea of sand but not a drop of water in sight.

 Under-exposure brings out the glitter of the gypsum crystals.

The gypsum washes down from the mountains dissolved in water. The water has no outlet except through evaporation and a bed of dried gypum remains, which eventually forms the dunes.

Only the hardiest of plants like this yucca can survive the shifting sands.

A group of Amish visitors arrived from Pennsylvania to play on the sands while I was there.

The White Sands, at 275 square miles and visible from space, is the largest gypsum dune field in the world.

Doulble click the photos to enlarge.